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Indo-Fijians and ethnic violence of the 2000 coup
Posted By Rua On January 8, 2010 @ 8:40 am In Articles, Fiji, NZ | No Comments
[1] Susanna Trnka ... a study of a communal impact of the Speight putsch in Fiji. Photo: Ranjit Singh
Pacific Scoop:
Opinion – By Thakur Ranjit Singh
A senior lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Auckland has lifted the lid on the oppressive life for some Indo-Fijians during the coup by maverick businessman George Speight, now imprisoned for treason, during 2000.
Dr Susanna Trnka's research – drawing on personal experience while living in an Indo-Fijian village during the coup – has largely focused on the impact of political violence.
For the past 10 years she had been looking at the political violence in Fiji and embodied practices of citizenship among Indo-Fijians in Fiji. She detailed some of her findings in her recent book on the 2000 coup in Fiji – State of suffering: Political violence and community survival in Fiji [2].
Dr Trnka's book is a very timely addition to literature on Fiji coups, especially from somebody who is not normally a resident of Fiji – a European, who personally experienced the ordeal and academically researched the pros and cons.
Unlike many Anglo-Saxon journalists and academics who appear to have supported indigenous supremacy of the Fijian people, Dr Trnka viewed things from an Indo-Fijian perspectives.
She shared an updated version of her material published in her book at the Pacific Islands Political Studies Association (PIPSA) conference at the University of Auckland last month. She focused on Fiji's most violent political upheaval – the 2000 coup and subsequent events – drawing from fieldwork that she undertook in Fiji amid the political troubles in 1999 and 2000 and several follow-up visits since then.
Disgruntled politicians
She says that while "race" was at the centre of the coup, others like academics and journalists, believed that a more likely impetus came from the political and economic interests of disgruntled politicians, business leaders (including Indo-Fijians) and members of military forces.
Nobody could actually put the finger on the real person behind 2000 coup, while it is also believed that People's Coalition was contemplating replacing then Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry with Dr Tupeni Baba.
According to her, most analysts believed that the main aim of Sitiveni Rabuka was to see the Alliance Party back in office, as well as to restore power to the eastern chiefly elite. Race, as in 2000, was used to rally support.
Rabuka is also reported to have said that he intended to convert Indo-Fijians to Christianity, apart from stopping their political dominance. While other reasons have been considered to have been contributing to Fiji coups, the theme of "racial difference" has always been perceived at the forefront.
From day one, when Speight jumped in front of the camera, he spoke about fulfilling the desire of the indigenous people to take control of the nation and develop a constitution that, once and for all, looked after their interests.
Whatever the reasons of the coups, the racially-antagonistic rhetoric had been backed up by violence and the Indo Fijians have always been on the receiving end of the racially-inspired violence. Indo-Fijian civilians, homes and places of worship were the targets of attacks following Rabuka's takeover in 1987.
Worse trends were noted in the aftermath of Speight takeover in 2000.
Refugee camp
Citing Amnesty International reports, Dr Trnka says that it had been estimated that "hundreds" of Indo-Fijians had their homes and businesses burned down or looted while at least 1000 Indo-Fijians had to flee from violent areas, resulting in the founding of Fiji's first "refugee camp" for internally displaced persons.
A side effect of such a racially-politicised climate was that thousands of Indo-Fijians were forced to give up their leased properties during the upsurge of support for indigenous Fijian nationalism.
While the violence that accompanied the coup is not common, the security and political participation of Indo-Fijians in Fiji has never been easy. The indenture or another form of slavery or "hell" for the forbears of Indo-Fijians has been full of shame associated with brutality and atrocities meted on the people by the colonialists at first and later by successive Fijian governments.
This is well reflected in Raymond Pillay's poem, The Labourer's Lament:
We came in answer to your plea,
We came to build your land.
But now that you are strong and free,
You turn our hopes to sand.
We, who tilled from dawn to dark,
Who worked in wind and rain,
We, who strove to make our mark,
Now we find we toiled in vain.
Colonial slaves
While the colonial administrators wanted the indentured labourers and their children to remain workhorses and slaves for the British, the indentured labourers had vision and wished to liberate the new generation from the subjugation through development of their life in Fiji which gave a new character of Indo-Fijians, very distinct from the India that their forbears had come from.
There are people, academics and scholars who recognise the hard work of Indo-Fijians and who have built themselves up, but in doing so have also built up the economic life of Fiji by working like workhorses and sweating like buffalos for the sake of Fiji. It has indeed been sad for Indo-Fijians who have been questioned about their loyalty to Fiji after toiling and sweating for the last 130 years.
At least some past Fijian leaders had recognised Indo-Fijian contribution to Fiji when Ratu Sukuna had refereed Fiji as a "three –legged stool": the labour of Indo-Fijians, the land of indigenous Fijians and the administration and capital of the British.
Ratu Sukuna had reminded Fijians about their responsibility to another community settled in their midst. He recognised them as of producers on their soil and said that "they are continuously striving to better themselves.
"Although they are of a different race, yet we are each a unit in the British Empire. They have shouldered many burdens that have helped Fiji onward"
Similarly, Fiji's then Governor-General, Ratu Sir George Cakobau, also recognised the contribution of Indo-Fijians during the 100th anniversary of Girmit commemoration in 1979:
"The people of Fiji should be thankful that the Indians were brought here to work the land because of the indenture system, an unpalatable term as it is, completed the triangular components of Fijian land, European money and Indian labour which moulded what Fiji is today . . . Our Indian friends and their forefathers have worked hard for themselves and for Fiji – they have had a big hand in shaping what we see in this country today."
Gratitude rare
Dr Trnka observed that while great Fijian statesmen had recognised Indo Fijian contribution to Fiji, such gratitude was rare 20 years on and after three coups.
However, this injustice and apparent corrupt practices and other policies based on racial discrimination under the guise of affirmative action riled the military commander who perhaps saw himself as the reason for such poor governance as he was the one who had invited Laisenia Qarase in a caretaker capacity.
Qarase went on to form a political party and rallied with the coup supporters and coup sympathisers to relish in a democracy founded on divisive racist policies.
With Voreqe Bainimarama, all the talk of "indigenous rights" went out the window and the emphasis was on a "clean-up" campaign to rid the country of the racial vices that had gripped it in all aspects of life.
He clamped on dissident elements, media and even marginalised the hitherto revered institution Great Council of Chiefs and had no hesitation in challenging and putting in place the leadership of the Methodist Church which was deemed to be practicing politics under the shade of pulpits.
While all are pushing Fiji towards election, Bainimarama is in no hurry and is taking his time to put in place an electoral system that can rid the country of the divisive politics of race.
Thakur Ranjit Singh is a postgraduate student in communication studies at AUT University and is a volunteer at AUT's Pacific Media Centre in Auckland. This is part of a series of articles about paper presentations at the recent Pacific Islands Political Studies Association (PIPSA) conference at the University of Auckland.
The mammoth task of ridding Fiji of coup culture – Rev Akuila Yabaki [3]
Article printed from Pacific.scoop.co.nz: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz
URL to article: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2010/01/indo-fijians-and-ethnic-violence-of-the-2000-coup/
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[1] Image: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/fiji_susan_trnka_edit.jpg
[2] State of suffering: Political violence and community survival in Fiji: http://www.pjreview.info/issues/docs/15_2/pjr_15(2)_review_2Fiji_pp214-219.pdf
[3] The mammoth task of ridding Fiji of coup culture – Rev Akuila Yabaki: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz../2009/12/the-mammoth-task-of-ridding-fiji-of-coup-culture-%e2%80%93-rev-akuila-yabaki/
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